Ok yes, I'm a diplo noob. I understand the system, learnt civic diplomacy, and I have been running around Khal parlaying with the level 50's and 75's I can find. I have a bunch of hearsays, and evidence and what have you, but I have no idea what to do with them or how I am suppose to level up and gain presence. I don't seem to be gaining levels when I win civic parlays so I'm really lost what to do next. Any info and help is much appreciated.

Vyvian Vycious

02-16-2007, 10:57 AM

Ok yes, I'm a diplo noob. I understand the system, learnt civic diplomacy, and I have been running around Khal parlaying with the level 50's and 75's I can find. I have a bunch of hearsays, and evidence and what have you, but I have no idea what to do with them or how I am suppose to level up and gain presence. I don't seem to be gaining levels when I win civic parlays so I'm really lost what to do next. Any info and help is much appreciated.

I know this will be a shock to you: The higher you get, the slower it gets.

Ok, smart arse comments aside... I can't count how many hours I've spent on diplomacy and all to reach 121 in the skill. I sat and parleyed with the same two crafters in Halgarad and same three soldiers in Martok to get it done.

Turned in so many information pieces, like 100+ and got pretty much crap for them. Sure, I obtained a few 13+ items for different presence, but only 4 pieces of that level of a boost. It's a big time investment, but I know there has to be a reward worth the time in the end.

Tip: Find a group of 3 NPCs you can beat regularily. Don't leave that spot until your eyes bleed or you find an adventuring group. You'll get the skill up and you'll start to get a good amount of information to trade in.

Absalon

02-19-2007, 05:48 PM

Ok yes, I'm a diplo noob. I understand the system, learnt civic diplomacy, and I have been running around Khal parlaying with the level 50's and 75's I can find. I have a bunch of hearsays, and evidence and what have you, but I have no idea what to do with them or how I am suppose to level up and gain presence. I don't seem to be gaining levels when I win civic parlays so I'm really lost what to do next. Any info and help is much appreciated.

You can turn in the information as various informants. There is a plots informant outside the east side of Khal, under a white tent. There is a trends informant in Lomshir. Tawar Galan has all 4 informants (plots, trends, arcana and blackmail) and is a quick teleport (or boat ride once they are working) away from Khal.

You can find more information about information and informants here:

http://vgtact.com/showthread.php?t=1755

For civic diplomacy, your rate of skill gain will be pretty slow. At a minimum, you should be getting 1 presence per 12 successful parleys, but that is 12 parleys with the same station of NPC. If you do 3 soldier parleys, 2 domestics, 4 academics and 3 nobles, you aren't likely to earn a presence point for any of them. You may earn a skill point during that time, but skill generally goes up slower than presence in most cases.

The higher level the NPC is, the faster your skill will go up. The more you beat the NPC by, the faster your presence will go up. So you could parley with lower skill NPC to try to raise your presence faster, but you will get lower level information, so it's a trade off.

The best thing to do is to concentrate on one station at a time. If you have a diplomacy quest, see what presence it requires and target NPCs of that type. While you are working on that, you will get info and do turn ins that will in turn raise your presence in other stations.

You can find a list of diplomacy quests here:

http://vgtact.com/showthread.php?t=1817

Mrrx

02-20-2007, 03:05 PM

I've seen the various bits of advice about going after higher skilled NPC's. The thing with them is, I sometimes fail the parley. That might wipe out the prior 4 successful parleys in terms of faction gain. It's hard to see the higher experience gain, even though I'm sure it's there. Plus the NPC's take longer until I can talk to them again if I fail, versus succeed. So I'm not big on trying difficult NPC's.

My method for skill ups - find a group of NPC's you can almost always beat. Even if they're the 50 skill beginner ones. Put together a single deck that works on all of them. Run between them and parley over and over and over and over and over again.

While you could get more presence concentrating on one type of NPC, I also managed increases in four different - uh - areas ? - by putting together a good mix of NPC's to hit up. Depends on exactly what you're trying to do I suppose; my goal is skill ups and the rest is gravy.

The best part is somehow, even though it's very "grindy", I'm not bored or anything. If you're stupid, you can still lose a parley at 90 skill to a 50 skill NPC. Somehow that keeps the whole thing interesting.

I'm documenting this all on my blog too. Good luck.

MrrX's Character Journal (http://mrrx.wordpress.com)

Minwanabi

02-21-2007, 01:07 AM

Mrrx, I'm gonna disagree with you about that losing to 50s as a 90 =P. I have a circuit of soldiers in Khal I've been doing for the past few days, 2 50s, 2 75s, 2 100s, and I'm at 77. Against the 50s and 75s, I will win every single time without them gaining a single point towards victory. The 100s inevitably gain 2 points and then I steamroll them. Once you have a deck down, if you are playing the same type of people with the same type of conversation, you can't lose, period. The tiny amount of randomness inserted by changing refresh timers is never enough to change the outcome of a parley (at least not so far for me - small disclaimer there, still a diplo noob on the grand scale of things).